A blog from the Teaching Artists in Chicago Opera Theater's outreach and education programs

Monday, February 29, 2016

Music Inspires at Healy Elementary!

Linden Christ, Director of Education and Outreach

Healy Elementary School had an exciting week of music called
Music Inspires! This week long program
is provided by Classical Kids Music Education, Oistrakh Symphony Orchestra, and
Chicago Opera Theater. Each year we
bring Music Inspires to two of our Opera for All schools. One Monday, the
students attend an assembly with two professional actors, a string quartet, and
your’s truly! This week focused on
CKME’s production of Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery. Our task is to help the students relate to
Vivaldi and his beautiful music. Vivaldi
was the „Rock Star“ of his day, composing over 600 pieces of music. We connected Vivaldi’s fame with today’s
hit, Hello by Adele. The string quartet
played the music and I sang this song and encouraged the students to sing along
with me. There was an abundance of giggling
and then all the students joined in singing „Hello“! On Tuesday, Daniel
Grambow, our COT Education Assistant and I visited with all five of the Healy
4th grade classrooms and presented them with a lesson plan focused on their
three ‚V‘ vocabulary words, Violins, Venice, & Vivaldi. We shared a violin that they could touch and
pass around, as well as Venetian masks and played excerpts from Vivaldi’s Four
Seasons and the A Minor Violin Concerto.

One of our teaching artists, Sara Litchfield commented, “ I
was really blown away with some of the students reactions to Vivaldi's Four
Seasons. One very quiet, thoughtful student named Kenny thought the movement
must be about spring because it sounded like the music was growing like plants
and flowers to in the spring. Surprisingly, he was not the only one with this response!

On Friday, the students returned to the auditorium to see
the full performance of Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery with the Oistrakh Symphony
Orchestra and the professional actors from Classical Kids Music Education. The students were mesmerized by this event.

One student asked if he could be a donor and donate $50 from
his allowance so that other students could experience this program!